Gabriel Bruce is the ex-Loverman vocalist and his debut solo single ‘Sleep Paralysis’ is set for release on December the 5th. It’s foreboding synth textures, sparse lyrical narrative and brooding baritone, has more than a hint of Leonard Cohen and the work of Nick Cave about it. It’s intriguing and intoxicating and proimises much for his future works. Watch the video below.
Gabriel Bruce’s idiosyncratic crooning baritone plaintively insists ‘I’ve got this feeling I were dead’ as the song slowly edges toward climax from hushed beginnings. A shaker drops in, drums fire off in doubles foreshadowing the release of the song’s pounding beat, whilst four organ notes cycle through claustrophobically, mirroring the feeling of sleep paralysis itself.
A hybrid of book and record release Bruce’s debut 7” is incorporated into an illustrated book which looks into the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, featuring cuttings and ephemera of people’s recollections of the remarkable sensation. The book draws from concrete poetry’s emphasis on the typographical possibilities of arrangement, with fragments by Paul Eluard sitting next to spliced out sections of medical texts and anonymous memoirs of the conditions, whilst placing itself within framework of Dada’s cut-up technique, popularised later by everyone from Burroughs to Bowie, where disparate fragments are dissociated from their contexts, and are given meaning cumulatively in the re-presentation of them.
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Gabriel Bruce’s Sleep Paralysis / No Love Lost is the second release on Off Modern Records. Creative collective Off Modern formed in 2008 around a monthly club and exhibition space they hosted at Corsica Studios in South London. Since then the group has gone on to engage in a wide range of activities, as a collective and individuals, from producing ‘zines and journals to curating exhibitions, hosting a radio show, as well as numerous other musical events.
Off Modern released a download only single Fiction’s Parakeets / Let The Day Perish in June 2011. Hear it here – http://soundcloud.com/off-modern
